


The Insatiable

by ainewrites (orphan_account)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Inhumans - Freeform, Post-Season/Series 02, The Kree Stone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-03-30 10:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3934159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ainewrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Picks up right where Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season two leaves off. The Kree Stone has more powers than anyone could have guessed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know. It's been less than a day since SOS aired, BUT I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL SEPTEMBER. So I am writing a fanfic.

Jemma wasn’t awake, but she wasn’t asleep, either. She was floating in nothingness, a sort of numbing pain creeping over her. She can’t move, can’t see, can’t even wake. All she can do is dream. 

And dream she does.

She dreams of a secret war and a not-so-secret one, of Coulson and Skye and Bobbi and Hunter and Mack. Of Trip. 

But mostly, she dreams of Fitz.

Of years of lab work, hundreds of inside jokes, millions of laughs and smiles. She dreams of a day deep beneath the ocean surface, of watching him, so still and silent in a hospital, of him waking up different. She dreams of him trying and failing and trying again, of him becoming more like the Fitz she knew for so long.

She dreams of him asking her to dinner.

She dreams of saying yes. 

And so she dreams on, in this timeless place.


	2. Legends

“Skye?” 

Skye looked up from her laptop to where Fitz stands, awkwardly twisting his hands together. 

“Hey, you look nice!” 

Fitz was wearing slacks and a button down t-shirt, normal enough attire for him, but the tie told Skye that something special was happening. Fitz flushed, and he looked strangely nervous. “Have you seen Jemma? We were supposed to meet after she finished work on the Kree Stone.”

Skye raised an eyebrow. “You’re meeting Jemma? Got a hot date or something?” Apparently the look on Fitz’s face was enough, because Skye suddenly grinned and said, “Where are you going? Movies? Dancing?”

“I was going to take her to dinner.” Skye opened her mouth to say something else, but Fitz cut her off. “But she’s not in the lab, and no one else as seen her.”

“I haven’t seen her, either.” Skye typed something on her laptop. “Huh. None of the security cameras are picking her up.”

“She left?” Fitz’s heart sank, he had been so hopeful. But Skye shook her head. “We’ve got no footage of her leaving The Playground. I can pull up the footage for the room with the Stone…” She tapped away at the keyboard, Fitz craning his neck over her shoulder. 

“So, it looks like you left the lab, and Simmons noticed something on the box…oh my god.” Both Skye and Fitz watched in horror as the box burst open, oozing gray-blue glue, sucking Simmons in while she screams. Then it’s back to normal, like nothing ever happened.

“Get Coulson!” Skye demanded, when Fitz just stood, staring at the computer screen, watching Simmons get swallowed by the stone over and over. Fitz stumbled away, his face ashen, Skye gently nudging him along. They burst into Coulson’s office without knocking, making him jump. 

“Skye? Fitz? What’s wrong?” Skye dumped her laptop on the table, pressing play on the video. Coulson watched it for a second, his eyebrows creasing, and then flying up as Simmons got pulled into the stone. Fitz almost collapsed, but Skye lunged for him and pulled him back upright. He was feeling so dizzy, and the room wouldn’t stop spinning. 

“Skye, get Mack and call Lincoln, see if he can fly in. He might have some input on this. Fitz…stay here. Drink some water.” Coulson pushed himself up from the desk, and Fitz was dimly aware of them leaving the room, but his eyes were still glued on the laptop screen, which was playing the same fifteen seconds over and over and over…

Mack got there first. He took one look at Fitz and the computer screen before snapping it shut. Fitz inhaled sharply, his lungs burning. He hadn’t known he was holding his breath. Mack shook him gently, “Fitz, breathe. She’ll be fine. We’ll get her out of this, okay?”

“How do you know?” Fitz almost wailed. “She was sucked into a stone and…I was the one that made it happen! I leaned against the box and I must have unlatched it accidently.” Fitz’s head fell into his hands. Suddenly, he could hear Jemma. But she was screaming the same thing over and over. “IT’S YOUR FAULT! IT’S YOUR FAULT.” He makes it halfway to the bathroom before he throws up. 

When he gets back to the office, Hunter is there, and so is Bobbi (in a wheelchair). Skye has her phone in her hand, and is just saying, “-sending a QuinJet to get Lincoln. He should be here in about three hours.” Everyone turned as Fitz walked back in, and Coulson said carefully, “Fitz, maybe you should go-“

“No. It’s my fault, I need to help.” Skye eyed Fitz warily, but no one says anything. Coulson cleared his throat, and said, “Mack, what do we know about the stone?”

Mack crossed his arms and leaned back on his heels. “All the readings we’re getting for it will spike whenever it turns into a wave, then return to almost nothing, as if it were a normal rock. But ever since Simmons was...” He casted cautious glances at Fitz “…absorbed, the readings spiked and returned to normal, but have been steadily growing ever since.” He handed a tablet to Coulson. “Not by much, but enough to be noticeable.”

Fitz was starting to feel faint again. Jemma was still murmuring, “Your fault…your fault…” in his head. When he was handed the tablet his vision blurred, and Hunter had to lunge to catch the tablet before it fell out of Fitz’s limp fingers. 

“What’s the progress on May?” Bobbi shifted in her wheelchair, her question directed at Skye. Skye shrugged. “Not answering anything. I think she actually turned everything off.”

 

“Probably going at it like rabbits.” Hunter leaned against Coulson’s desk. “Are you sure we can trust this Lincoln guy? We don’t know a lot about him.”

“We can trust him.” Skye had her phone in her hands, typing furiously. 

“We thought that about your Mom.”

Skye gave him the evil eye. “We can trust Lincoln.”

Surprisingly, Hunter shut up. 

Fitz swallowed. “The readings almost look like the stone is pulling energy off of Jemma.”

The entire room went silent. Even Skye froze. Then it burst into noise. “I’ll keep trying May.” Skye ran from the room, Mack following her, saying he was going to go check the requirement. Hunter and Bobbi left, Bobbi to go back to the makeshift hospital, Hunter to go and see if he can help Mack. They left Coulson and Fitz in the room alone.

Coulson clasped Fitz’s shoulder with his one remaining hand. “We’ll get her back, Fitz.” Then Fitz was alone, staring at readings on a screen.  
Fitz and Skye were waiting when the QuinJet touched down in the hanger. Lincoln climbed off, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He smiled at Skye, who smiled back, before turning to Fitz. He held out his hand. “Nice to formally meet you.”

Fitz forced a smile.

Skye led Fitz and Lincoln through the halls, down to where Mack and Coulson were waiting in the room with the Stone. Coulson wasted no time. “What do you know about this?”

“There are many legends circling around it.” Lincoln rocked back on his heels. “It’s said to be a weapon created by the Kree to destroy us-the Inhumans-but never actually activated. Some say that it’s a portal to the Kree realm, but most say it’s a prison, designed to leech the powers from the Inhumans. Skye said that a human got pulled into it?”

Fitz nodded. “Jemma. I accidently opened a seal, and when she went to close it…” Fitz’s throat closed up, and he couldn’t finish his sentence. Luckily, Lincoln didn’t ask any more questions.

“Well, the legends also say that it’s at least semi-sentient, and feeds off the powers. It must have been starving to take a human; it’s been denied powers for thousands of years. But her being a human complicates things…there are no powers to drain, only her life force.”

“How long does she have?” Mack asked.

“The legends say Inhumans last a month, at most. She has maybe a week.”

“Oh, Jemma.” Fitz ran his fingers through his hair, panic washing over him. “How do we get her out?”

Lincoln shrugged. “The legends never really said. Some say that a life freely given can convince the stone to give up its prisoner, but it also said that the stone could decide it wants both. Some others say that if you pull the stone apart it will release its prisoner, but to pull it apart, you can’t actually touch it.”

“How do we pull it apart?”

Lincoln shrugged again. “Again, the legends don’t say. And they could be completely wrong…we’ve had this around for thousands of years, even Jiaying wasn’t old enough to know anything more than the legends.”

Skye crossed her arms. “If they were true, shouldn’t we see Simmons every time it turns into a wave?”

“It hasn’t turned into a wave.” Fitz said slowly. “Normally every time you walk into the room, it breaks down. But it hasn’t, not since it took Jemma.”

Lincoln nodded. “The wave is its way of trying to get food. Right now, it doesn’t need any.”

“Because it’s got Jemma.”

“Fitz, you start running tests on the Stone.” Coulson ordered. “See if it reacts to anything. If it even quivers, I want to know. Lincoln, Skye, you come with me. Mack, help Fitz.” He left the room without another word. 

With trembling fingers, Fitz attached more wires to the glass case. Mack watched him in concern. “Fitz, are you okay? Can you do this?”

“No. Yes.” Fitz stopped, clenching his left hand. “I’m starting to get how Jemma felt after Ward dumped us in the Ocean. But she kept working, and so can I.” He took a deep breath, attaching another wire. 

Mack clapped his shoulder. “Now, what can I do to help?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the boring-ness of this chapter. I promise, it will get more exciting.


	3. The Bestest

“Fitz, you’ve been working for thirty hours. You need to take a break.” Skye watched Fitz run from computer to computer, a plate of food in her hands. “You’re going to start making mistakes, and that won’t help Jemma.”

Fitz collapsed into a chair, his head in his hands. “But when I’m not working, I start thinking…”

Skye passed him the plate. “Eat, at least.” She leaned against a pile of empty metal crates, attempting to surreptitiously read the graphs and charts on the computer screens upside down. “I finally got a hold of May. She and Andrew will be here within an hour. Lincoln and Mack can come and take over for you. Go take a nap. I’ll wake you up if anything happens.”

Fitz took a bite of the turkey and cheese sandwich, and a little bit of color came back into his cheeks. “Tell them that the only thing that has made it react was your blood.”

“My blood?”

“One of your old samples, from when you were in the quarantine. But I don’t know if it reacted to just the blood in general or Inhuman blood.” Realization flashed across his face. “I could get one of Bobbi’s blood samples and test that…”

“Fitz.” 

He sighed, gave on last look at the screens before shuffling out.

Skye sat on another crate, staring at the glass-encased stone. She resisted the urge to curse at it. She had never seen Fitz looking worse, and considering she had seen him in a coma after being pulled up from the bottom of the ocean, that was saying something.

Reaching into her pocket, Skye pulled out a small square. She turned the little fridge magnet over in her hands, smiling and blinking back tears at the same time. It said “World’s Bestest Scientist”, in white block print over a black background. She had bought it for Jemma as a joke…she had known the use of the non-word “Bestest” would have driven Jemma crazy. 

In a fit of anger she whirled and threw the magnet as hard as she could, then collapsed down on the crate and cried. She hadn’t cried during this whole process…not when her Mother turned on her, or when her Dad got his memories wiped or even after watching the video over of Jemma being absorbed over and over and over. Now it was a flood, everything that had happened over the last few days pressing down on her.

When the tears finally stopped flowing, she sniffed, wiping her eyes on her shirt sleeve. She took a deep breath and stood up, searching the room for the magnet. She still wanted to give it to Jemma. Refusing to think that she might not get a chance, she dropped down on her hands and knees to peer between the crates. She couldn’t remember which way she had thrown it.

Not finding it on the floor, she began investigating the make shift desks, running her hand between the computers, praying the magnet hadn’t landed on one of them. Not finding the magnet, she glanced briefly at a screen before turning away. She froze, turning slowly back around. The screen showed little blips, almost like a heartbeat. It was small, not enough to set off an alarm or even an alert, but something had changed.

Skye walked over to the class-encased stone, running her hand along the glass. Something black and white caught her eye and she crouched down, watching as a tiny sliver of the stone reached out toward the magnet, firmly fastened to the glass. Digging her fingernails under it, she carefully peeled the magnet away, and the finger-like protrusion melted back into the stone.

“It’s magnetic…” She whispered. “The stone is magnetic!” She fumbled in her pocket, pulling out her cellphone. She madly dialed Mack’s number, and as soon as she heard him pick it up she started talking. “Where are you guys? I thought Fitz was going to send you down. I need you and Lincoln down here now!” She turned the phone off, carefully placing the magnet back into the glass.  
______  
When Mack and Lincoln appeared, they had a bleary-eyed Fitz with them, his clothes wrinkled and his hair mussed. Skye pointed at the magnet. “I bought this for Jemma as a joke, and I got mad and threw it. It must have been pulled to the stone. And now look.” She gestured at the computer screen and Fitz darted over. 

“The magnet is making it move, it’s registering higher than the blood.” He turned, watching as a protuberance reached for the magnet. He turned to Lincoln, his gaze more hopeful than Skye had seen it in days. “If it’s magnetic, do you think that we could use a magnet to pull it apart?”

Lincoln shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “It’s possible,” He said slowly, his eyebrows furrowed. “I’ve never heard anything about it being magnetic, and if you did they would have to be very powerful.”

“Didn’t you say something about developing a way to help Lola fly using magnets instead of engines?” Skye asked Mack, and Mack nodded slowly. “Engines use a lot of fuel, and I thought magnets might be a good alternative. The ones I have are nowhere near powerful enough.” 

“I can help with that.” Fitz, despite having only an hour or so of sleep and half a sandwich, looked better than he had in days. For the first time since Jemma got eaten by the stone, Fitz looked almost hopeful. 

“I’d like to help,” Skye said. All three men looked at her, vaguely surprised. She rolled her eyes. “Look, hacking isn’t the only thing I’m good at. I could stir something.”

“I’ll watch the stone,” Mack said, crossing his arms. “Lincoln?”

“I’ll help Fitz and Skye.” He gave her a quick smile that she returned.

Fitz gathered a pile of papers into his arms. “Great,” He said, “I’ll go set up the lab.” Fumbling with the papers to pull a laptop into his arms, he dropped about half that Skye scooped up. Before she went she peeled the magnet from the glass, sliding it back into her pocket. 

The fate of the “Bestest” scientist was starting to look up.   
________  
While Fitz ran the lab and Skye and Lincoln carried boxes from table to table, Mack sat in the room, a paperback novel in his hand. Behind his back a computer screen blipped away, the heart-beat like readings growing steadily stronger.

All this time, Jemma was dying. Her dreams were getting more restless. She dreamed of an army of metal men attacking the earth, of that long, long swim, pulling the limp body of Fitz up behind her as she stroked desperately toward the surface. She was watching Skye bleed out in a hyperbaric chamber. She was watching Bobbi’s vitals as they got weaker and weaker.

The numbing sensation was strengthening, turning from numbing to prickling to a dull, steady pain. Once she had been almost conscious, conscious enough to realize that she was in trouble. She had tried to claw her way out of the sleep, only to have a sharp, burning pain knock her back. 

She knew, somewhere in the very depths of her mind, that she needed to wake.

And if she didn’t, she would die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long wait!


	4. Magnetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, this 'fic was never intended to be about Jemma trapped in the Stone. It is about what comes after she gets out. Keep that in mind.

Skye huffed, lifting a magnet the size of a brick into her arms. “This thing weights like thirty pounds!”

“23, actually,” Fitz said, not lifting his eyes from the weird twisting piece of metal he was carefully painting with something that smelled like battery acid. Skye shifted the magnet in her arms, shaking her head when Lincoln offered to hold it for her.

It felt good to be doing something, even if it was just playing fetch for Fitz or holding a magnet that was getting heavier by the second. If she was doing something, she didn’t feel so helpless. She knew it was worse for May. Pretty much since the second from she had been briefed, May had been going at a punching bag like her life depended on it. May hated feeling helpless even more than Skye, it was almost a fear for her, and it made her restless and edgy. Skye doubted that the punching bag would still resemble a cylinder when May was done with it.

Fitz took the magnet from Skye’s arms, settling it into the metal contraption. He placed the magnet next to the other two, leaning back to strip off his gloves. He looked exhausted, swollen, dark circles under his eyes, most of his face pale but his cheeks flushed. 

“What now?” Skye asked, brushing bits of magnetic dust from her hands.

“We use the magnets to pull the Stone apart, grab Jemma, and lock it up again,” Fitz answered instantly, reaching to send a message to Coulson. Lincoln hesitated, and both Fitz and Skye turned to look at him.

“We don’t know if this will even work,” Lincoln said slowly, “And if it does; what shape Simmons will be in. There are no legends about someone being pulled from the Stone itself.”

Fitz clenched his jaw, something Skye had never seen him do before. “I don’t care, we have to try.” When he handed Lincoln a magnet to carry, he pushed it into his chest, making Lincoln take a couple of unsteady steps backward. 

____

The room that held the glass-encased stone was crowded. Coulson and Mack stood next to each other, both looking quietly hopeful. May stood in a corner, arms crossed, face in an expressionless mask. Hunter leaned against the handlebars of Bobbi’s wheelchair, and Lincoln stood next to where Skye was perched on a pile of crates. Even Andrew was there, looking both curious and apprehensive at the same time. 

Fitz connected a magnet to the side of the glass case, completing the lopsided triangle. He stepped back, a remote control in his hands, and May stepped forward, ready to lunge and grab Jemma. Skye held her breath, watching as Fitz flipped a switch.

The Stone began to split.

The magnets drew the clay-like Stone apart. It quivered and fought, and Skye dug her nails into the palms of her hands. There was a sound, like when you pull a rain boot from mud. The Stone flew to the magnets, and in the middle, there was Jemma. She was floating, eyes closed, clearly asleep yet face creased in pain. Her legs were still encased in the stone, as was half her head. May moved faster than Skye had ever seen her, grabbing Jemma’s wrist and yanking. There was a snapping sound and Jemma was in May’s arms. Mack lunged forward and slammed the door shut, Fitz switching off the magnets.

Jemma’s eyes fluttered and Fitz ran for her, only to jump back as she turned and vomited blue-gray slime over the floor. Then she slumped, limp in May’s arms.  
____  
Jemma was hovering in the place between sleep and wakefulness, her consciousness stirring. Somehow, she knew the stone was waking. Pain flared through her body, and her head felt like it was splitting apart.

She felt a hand close around her wrist, and suddenly she was falling, and someone was holding her, and she tried to open her eyes. But then her stomach clenched and revolted, and she leaned over and threw up. Her head spun and she passed out, this sleep thankfully painless.

Jemma was starting to wake up, but she was so warm and comfortable she didn’t want to. But slowly she pulled herself from sleep, prying open her eyes. Her vision was fuzzy, but as it adjusted she could see she was in the quarantine room, the closest thing that The Playground had to a hospital room.

Beside her, in an uncomfortable looking plastic chair, Leo slept, his mouth slightly open, his head resting on his shoulder. Jemma smiled, the small movement so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. She slowly sat up, wincing as her body protested. Her wrist was throbbing, and it was wrapped in a brace. A cramping in her lower abdomen told her she had to pee. She swung her legs out from under the crisp white sheets, but couldn’t stop the quiet noise of pain.

That was enough to wake Leo, and his head jerked up, his eyes wild. His gaze settled on Jemma, and the look of relief was so eminent on Leo’s face it made her wonder what had happened. The last thing she remembered was going to fix the latches on the Stone’s container. 

“You’re awake,” He said, and then he pulled her into a hug so tight Jemma could feel her ribs crack. She laughed and gently pushed him away, but only because she really had to go to the bathroom. The floor was cold beneath her bare feet, and when she tried to put weight on her legs she nearly tipped over. Leo caught her before she could fall, and slowly she stood up. 

Leo didn’t follow her into the bathroom, for which she was grateful. Once she was done, she braced herself on the sink and stared into the mirror. Her face was pale, her hair tangled and stringy. She was wearing gray sweatpants and the Sherlock Lives! T-shirt Skye had gotten her last Christmas. 

When she stepped from the bathroom she was instantly enveloped in another hug, the scent of Skye’s vanilla-mint shampoo flooding her nose. Skye stepped back, a huge grin on her face. “Fitz told me you were awake and I came down as fast as I can.”

“I stopped her from bursting into the bathroom,” Leo put in, craning his neck to see around Skye, “She’s angry because she’s been holding a vigil outside the quarantine and she left for the first time to get food when you woke up.”

Skye ignored him, saying, “You’ve been asleep for about 16 hours, we were worried you were going to fall into a full-on coma, but apparently not! All of your-“ Leo elbowed his way back in front. “Your blood tests all came back completely normal. You’re perfectly fine, Lincoln just said it was most likely your body trying to heal itself or too big a shock to your system to-“

Jemma interrupted him as gently as possible, “I don’t understand, what happened? One minute I’m watching the Stone, the next I’m in the quarantine.”

Both Leo and Skye instantly went quiet, casting a worried glance at each other. “Well….” Skye said, drawing out the word, “It’s kind of a long story. Maybe we should wait…”

“Leo?” Jemma asked, and Leo went slightly pale. “Um, Skye?”

“Oh, yes, thank you,” Skye said sarcastically, but she was already pulling her cellphone from her pocket. After a long minute of typing, Skye handed it to Jemma. “We caught this on the security cameras.”

Jemma’s heart started pounding as she watched the six second video on repeat. With trembling hands, she gave the phone back to Skye. “How…how did you get me out?”

Leo relaxed slightly. “Magnets, giant magnets. We used them to pull the Stone apart, and May pulled you out.”

Something wiggled in the back of Jemma’s mind, the memory of feeling someone’s hand close around her currently throbbing wrist.

“She dislocated it in the process,” Skye explained, “But we figured you wouldn’t mind it so much.”

Jemma nodded, still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she had been pulled into an alien weapon, and somehow managed to get out alive, thanks to her friends. “Has the stone showed any changes?”

Leo looked slightly guilty. “No one’s checked it since we got you out. No one wants to go near it.”

Someone should have checked it. Down, deep in a vault, the stone appeared to be completely unchanged. But the monitors showed otherwise. The heart-beat like readings still spiked across a computer screen, and they were slowly, steadily growing.

The Stone was starting to strengthen.

**Author's Note:**

> So this chapter is insanely short, but most of the chapters will be way, way longer.


End file.
